Eriskay : Whisky, Royalty and Fiction

This photo captures the striking turquoise waters of Caolas Eiriosgaigh, with the curving causeway unfurling across it, linking Eriskay to South Uist. The changing blues of the kyle on either side mark the subtle shifts in depth.

Eriskay, though small—only four kilometres long and two and a half wide—is the largest island in the Sound of Barra and the key outpost south of the Uists before one reaches Barra. Its name, Eiriosgaigh, means Eric’s Isle in Gaelic.

The island is remembered for three things.

First, it was the point of arrival for Prince Charles Edward Stewart on his journey from France to raise support for the 1745 Jacobite rebellion. He landed from the French frigate Du Teillay with the Seven Men of Moidart. Local tradition holds that he took shelter in a cove along a silver sandy shore now called Coilleag a’ Phrionnsa—“the Prince’s beach.” Despite what Google Translate might suggest for ‘Coilleag’, there is no woodland there.

Second, during the Second World War, the SS Politician ran aground off Eriskay’s north-east coast with 24,000 cases of whisky aboard. Much of it went missing. The tale became the basis for Compton Mackenzie’s Whisky Galore, and the film that followed.

Third, Eriskay appears in The Lewis Man, the second book in Peter May’s Hebridean trilogy. I mention this only because I have just finished it. But that’s all I’m saying—no spoilers from me!